


Ramping Up the Speed

by cherrylng



Category: Muse (Band)
Genre: Badass Dom Howard, Driving, Gen, Humor, Mild Language, Race, Ramps, car racing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 15:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14751779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrylng/pseuds/cherrylng
Summary: When Matt made fun of how fussy Dom is in cleanliness and wanting to dress like he’s a fashionable, girly bachelor, he never thought about how his this particular insult would later come back to bite him right on the arse.





	Ramping Up the Speed

One of Matt’s favourite pastimes when hanging out with his closest friends is to make fun of them. It was a given. Something that lads do all the time and have a laugh about, unless someone does politely tell him to cease inflicting it on them to which he does stop as intended.   
  
It’s something that Chris and Dom didn’t really think that Matt was capable of, but he never did tell them that in the first place anyways. Or if he did say so years ago, they had mostly forgotten that that was possible for someone like himself.  
  
Besides, neither of them are not so above in throwing some insults towards Matt in return. Like a few years ago in the early start when Matt got together with Chris Martin as his boyfriend, Dom said that he can finally call Matt gay and there was nothing for Matt to refute that against. Or when Chris made fun of Matt’s ‘girly clothes’ many years ago when the bassist encounter Matt by chance shopping for trousers in the girl’s section of a clothing store.  
  
However, when Matt made fun of how fussy Dom is in cleanliness and wanting to dress like he’s a fashionable, girly bachelor, he never thought about how his this particular insult would later come back to bite him right on the arse.  
  
For somehow, along the way for these past few years, Dom must have been fed up with it and decided that he needed a hobby that is more hands on, more involvement with the outdoors.  
  
It resulted in the past few years of seeing and hearing Dom taking up such activities. That was nothing special in Matt’s mind, as he still has his faff bag and the need to preen and clean which meant that his teasings still holds on the drummer.  
  
When Dom is not spending time hanging out with Andy and some other friends, he would spend it hanging out with Corvo.   
  
From that, he picked up several hobbies that involves spending time outdoors. He goes goes on trips with Andy’s family, getting a sun tan on a Mediterranean beach or on a yacht. He got into rock mountain climbing and learned parkour from Corvo to traverse cities in a more interesting mode of travel.  
  
The last one is quite important. No, not the one where Dom has learned parkour, which is awesome and all. Rather, it was him spending time with the Japanese singer.  
  
It is apparent to those that have noticed that when you spend time with Corvo long enough, the Japanese singer’s hobbies tends to rub onto those who went along in his excursions, like Dom picking up his love for parkour. Or more accurately, the most recent hobby that has rubbed onto Dom was caused by Corvo’s best friend and drummer, Link.  
  
Namely, this particular hobby is that of car racing.  
  
Now, Matt did knew that Dom enjoyed participating in racing for over a decade now, but that mainly was kept to kart racing and going to Monaco to watch during the race season. What he didn’t know was when the transition changed from go-karts to actual cars.   
  
When Matt was invited for the activity, he joined Dom along for it, thinking that it’ll be interesting to see. He joined Dom along to the British countryside to meet up with Corvo and Link, finding himself in a rally race course set around a forest with a pair of custom cars reserved for the race.  
  
It was only a rally car race. When they gathered together with Corvo and Link, they made some small chat before both drummers started talking about technical stuff way above Matt’s level of comprehension towards cars, about the engines and the wheels and bits of other things that Matt tuned off from listening.   
  
From there starts a series of mistakes for the brunet.  
  
The first is that because he didn’t really pay attention to what they have said, he didn’t listen when one of them started bragging about how this race course will be a challenging one. So when Dom asked if Matt wanted to be his partner in the race -no driving on his part involved- Matt should have paid heed when his instinct responded with that of alarm and surprise, rather than excitement towards such a prospect before he shoved those emotions away.  
  
“You need this helmet and you better wear it. It’s going to be a bumpy race,” Corvo says when he handed Matt a safety helmet. That is Matt’s second mistake. For again, Matt paid no heed to that, thinking that it was just the Japanese singer looking out for his friends as usual rather than the subtle hint that he can just switch with somebody else to take his place than to get into the car.  
  
When Matt got into the passenger seat, again he should have paid heed to his own gut instincts telling him that he should’ve gotten out of the car right there and then. He puts it off as excitement and nervousness towards this race.  
  
Finally, he should have paid more attention to that glint on Dom’s eyes when he got into the driver seat and handed Matt a piece of paper with pre-determined directions for the race course. He should have realised that that what he saw in Dom’s eyes was his competitiveness surfacing.  
  
“You ready?” Dom asks as he revs the engine. Link does the same in return from the other car.  
  
“Never been more ready,” Matt replies.  
  
When the flag drops, the cars accelerate forwards and Matt is all but too late from making any escape.  
  
The noise coming from the engine is loud. The dirt and gravel road gives no mercy to the occupants in the cars. There is an intense level of focus on Dom as he concentrates his eyes on the road, his hands on the wheel and gear shift, and his feet on the gas and brake pedals.  
  
It wasn’t so bad, at first. For the first thirty seconds. To which from then on there is a chilling, horrifying realisation for Matt that he was far too late to bail out until the race is over and done with.  
  
Being stuck in the passenger seat next to the drummer made Matt start to realise that Dom has been spending time with Link long enough to have not only further develop his skills and passion for racing, but also the strong desire to go fast, foot down on the gas pedal and drive like a maniac.  
  
The only things that are keeping him clinging to life is the seatbelt and safety helmet. Matt could barely even concentrate on the piece of paper that he is holding. And he is supposed to be Dom’s navigator through the race course.  
  
“Come on, Matt! Read out the next direction!” Dom shouts when he sees the direction flag ahead of him and making Matt be reminded that, yes, he does have an important role in why he’s in the car in the first place.  
  
“Left!” Matt all but screams like a little girl after struggling to open the paper out to check the directions that they should go.  
  
Dom makes a sharp left turn, and the car speeds up towards a dirt ramp. The vehicle flies off from the ramp and is in the air for a few seconds. That few seconds felt like looking back at a lifetime Matt was not ready to see in front of his eyes yet.  
  
The car bounces back down to the ground hard, but the springs endured the force magnificently. Somewhere along the way, Matt is sure that he dropped something behind. Most likely the sense of finding this sport being fun. And maybe his guts too.  
  
For Dom, however, that ramp jump only got him to like the set up for this race.  
  
“That’s just the first ramp!”  
  
“The first ramp…?” Matt squeaks.  
  
“Yeah! There’s a few more that we gotta jump over!”  
  
The rest of the subsequent race was like a blur, but a very long blur that Matt doesn’t want to remember if somebody asks him to recall the whole race. It was a terrifying, living nightmare for Matt trying -and inevitably failing- not to scream like his life is on the line here for every bump and swerve and ramp while having to tell Dom the next direction for every time a flag appears in front of them. Repeatedly.  
  
Meanwhile, Dom as the driver is having the time of his life on the race track and pushing the car to its limits while chasing up to the car ahead of them, with Link have vastly much more experience in such races and easily keeping Dom behind him. Matt wasn’t sure if Dom was laughing in joy of the sport or if he was laughing at Matt’s utter terror.   
  
All Matt wanted now is the race to be over with. That, or his heart to give out before he has to face another terror-induced ramp jump up to the air. Which incidentally, they did encounter another one.  
  
“Oh, this is a big one!” Dom exclaims excitedly right as the car hits the ramp and there were on the air, spending far longer and going far higher than the previous ramps.  
  
“Yeeeeeeaaaaah!” screamed Dom, a big grin plastered on his face.  
  
“Aaaaaaaaaaaah!” screamed Matt, his hands clinging tightly to the roof handle and cushioned seat.  
  
And then the car reaches back down to the ground once more.  
  
As much as Matt wished it, unfortunately his heart was too stubborn to give out yet.  
  
The change from dirt and gravel to proper tarmac road that signals that they’re one third away from finishing the race didn’t make things better at all, but at least there’s no more ramps to deal with. How the car -much less Matt himself- is still functioning after more than six ramp jumps is a testament to mechanical work and engineering done to the cars to make it possible.  
  
“We’re still in second place,” Dom grunted, only a few seconds behind Link and Corvo’s car. They have been neck to neck a few times but Link keeps managing to be ahead of the race.  
  
“Second isn’t so bad,” Matt tries to say.  
  
“We won’t be for long,” Dom says and Matt swears he can hear his smirk.  
  
Before Matt can say anything, they were off the tarmac road and onto the grass and Dom steps the gas pedal hard, the car throwing up dirt and grass behind its wheels as it picks up more than enough speed in overtaking the other car before getting back on the road, not realising the heart palpitations that he inflicted on Matt for doing that. But the plan worked as intended and they’re in first place right to the end.  
  
When the car finally - _finally_ \- comes to a stop, Matt unbuckles himself and his legs feel like jelly upon getting out of the car. He isn’t sure whether he is going to throw up or curl up on the ground in a foetal position. Either one of them is ready to be picked on the table right now.  
  
“First place, motherfuckers!” Dom hollered, fists punching up to the air. “Whoo!”  
  
“I only gave you that one chance to win!” Link argues back, though the grin on his face shows that he wasn’t particularly upset by the loss.  
  
“Nope. I won when I overtook you and you knew you were too late to do anything about it!” the blond drummer boasts out loud.  
  
Matt wonders if he can crawl away while they’re distracted from their own adrenaline. Better do it now before they noticed his escape. Looking up, he can see Corvo being the only one to have noticed him. He is giving him a pitied look, but he is keeping his mouth shut to let Matt get away before anyone else noticed.  
  
“I feel like I want to race again right away! One lap is definitely not enough!” Dom says loudly.  
  
“It definitely isn’t!” the normally calm Link agrees enthusiastically. “And I’m going to beat you this time.”  
  
“Three laps?” Dom asks with a challenging tone.  
  
“Three laps,” Link agrees and they shook hands.  
  
“Come on, Matt!” Dom exclaims out loud, pulling Matt to sit up after catching up on him trying to crawl away by just walking towards the brunet, seemingly ignorant of the fact that Matt was trying to escape from him. “We’re having an hour’s rest for now! We’re going back on the track again soon! We got three laps this time!”  
  
Matt can only whimper, his already paled face paler than usual.  
  
“Man, you’re a good partner for rally car races here, Matt,” Dom says, patting his shoulder. “Maybe for next month’s meetup I’ll have you as my partner again!”  
  
Hearing that, Matt does the most appropriate response. He fainted.


End file.
